Variation in Interlanguage Morphology
Will be published approx. on 1. May 1991
Book
Hardback
XI, 284 pages
978-0-8204-1381-5 (ISBN)
Description
This major contribution to second language acquisition theory examines the question of the systematicity of learners' language. Richard Young proposes a new descriptive model for handling what other investigators have claimed to be random variations in performance, and he tests the model on plural inflections in the English interlanguage of Chinese learners. The study investigates how factors such as the social context of speech, the linguistic environment of a variable, and the tendency to omit redundant information affect the developing interlanguage system. The representation of learners' language which emerges from this study is richer, more complex, and more descriptively adequate than has previously been available.
More details
Person
The Author: Richard Young is Assistant Professor in the Linguistics Department at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Previously he was Director of English Language Programs at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also taught in the M.S. in TESOL program. He has published widely on second language acquisition, language testing, curriculum design, and ESL methodology, and has lectured and conducted research in second language learning in Britain, Italy, Hong Kong, China, and Czechoslovakia. He received his Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Reading, and an M.A. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from New College, Oxford.
Content
Contents: Chinese - English as second language - Interlanguage - Morphology - Plural - Research-methods - Second-language-acquisition - Variation.